Wrapped Up In You : Paved With Good Intentions
by The Itch
Summary: The road to the apocalypse is long and twisted, but not even Pluto saw Serenity getting lost like this. Stanford is supposed to be their great love story. WUIY part 2
1. CHANGE

**Paved With Good Intentions  
><strong>_CHANGE  
><em>The Itch

* * *

><p>She didn't want to be Usagi anymore.<p>

It was hardly the first time that she had felt this way; it had come and gone numerous times during her teenage adventures, but it had definitely been a few years since the last time. Not since... well, not since before Galaxia. Not since the last time that Mamoru had walked all over her heart, if she was being honest. It was hard not to be when she hurt this much.

Each time previous, she had only seen one solution: to change herself into something that would be more attractive to Mamoru. To fix herself for him. She had tried to be prettier. She tried to be more mature. She had dug in and clawed frantically at the faded and fractured memories of her life as Serenity in an attempt to become the Princess that had once been his True Love. She could remember a love so deep and powerful that his death had inspired her previous self to suicide, and she had tried so hard to force herself into that half remembered mold.

Each and every one of those attempts had been for naught. Every change that she had tried to make of herself, everything that she had reached for had eventually been dropped. She had been 'perfect' the way she was when they had first met- waves of long blonde hair, and brilliantly blue eyed. The same as that long lost Princess that had haunted his dreams for years. So she had kept dying her hair and wearing the contacts long after she had tired of the look. This is what Serenity had been, and so it was what Usagi would be. There was no other choice.

She didn't want to be Serenity anymore, either.

Serenity's love for Endymion had been all encompassing, a vine that had grown and twisted through every facet of her life. So Usagi had dug in at fourteen, when the memories started to come back, to make sure that she did the same. She was Serenity reborn, after all. It only made sense that they would mirror each other that way. So when Mamoru had returned to America for his studies, had, in fact, decided to finish them there, she had decided to follow him.

It was their love that saw her through her tears, saw her through depression and through stresses that would have broken her before. Every time that she thought to give up on her dream of being with him, she would remember Serenity and she would persevere. It was an awe-inspiring change, and her friends had rushed to help her reach her dreams before she could change her mind. It was their love that had her applying for and getting into Stanford. That love that had sent her across an ocean just to study politics.

After all, if she was going to be the Queen of Earth, she should probably understand how governments worked, right?

Usagi had wanted to surprise her love. She had kept not only her visit, but the fact that she had been accepted into the same University that he had, a secret. She had fantasized about their reunion in her head from the moment she had gotten on the plan in Narita to the moment she turned the corner towards his residence. Mamoru would be surprised when she knocked on his door, of course. His eyes would grow wide, and she would offer him her sweetest smile. She'd cover his started exclamations with a cheerful greeting even as she pushed him back into his room and sealing their lips together. It would be a sweet kiss, as beautiful and perfect as their first, and then-

Usagi had seen pictures of Mamoru's lab partner, of course. She was a pretty young thing, with short black hair and sharp brown eyes. Caucasian, not Japanese. She wore her make up thick and her shirts thin. She had always been a non-thread in Usagi's eyes. The girl was the opposite of Serenity, just this tiny little thing that couldn't possibly get in the way of predestined love.

Maybe... maybe if Serenity hadn't been so confident. Maybe if she hadn't believed so whole heartedly in their immortal love... well, maybe then Usagi wouldn't have rounded the corner just in time to see the lab partner sling her leg over Mamoru's hips. She wouldn't have seen the stubby and calloused fingers slide up and tangle in Mamoru's hair. She wouldn't have seen the gentle tug that brought Mamoru's head down.

She wouldn't have seen the absolutely filthy kiss that broke her heart.

Usagi fled. What else could she do? She was barely managing to hold all the piece of her crumbling heart together as the jagged edges of betrayal tore into her chest. She almost made it back to her own room before she could only collapse against the wall and fall apart. Her legs refused to hold her weight and down she went, a crumpled ball of blond hair on the floor, face buried in her hands.

There were no great wailing sobs. She did not shriek or throw a temper tantrum. There were only the tears boiling trails down her face, her shoulders shaking and breath coming in harsh gasps.

An arm looped loosely around her shoulders, while fingers brushed her hands away gently and tried to tilt her chin up to get a look at her face. "Oh jeez... Rabbit... what happened?"

She didn't look up. She only turned so that she could bury her face into Brady's neck, hands curled in his shirt.

"I don't want to be Usagi anymore."

* * *

><p>side note: despite appearances, Mamoru isn't really a bad guy. We'll get into that later.<p> 


	2. RED

**Paved With Good Intentions**  
><em>RED<br>_The Itch

* * *

><p>"Hey Rabbit! You still alive in there?"<p>

Tyson Brady was starting to get worried. It had been a long couple days, and despite having managed to convince Usagi to stick out at least the first semester of classes, the number of times she'd broken down so far was starting to get into the double digits. He could understand her distress; catching your fiancé with another woman was only a good thing if you had been looking for an excuse to break off the relationship. Usagi, on the other hand, had invested the whole of herself into this relationship and the betrayal was destroying her.

He should know; they'd been introduced in 5th grade, when their teachers had arranged a pen pal exchange. She had sent him an absolutely terrible letter in half learned English, and the one he had sent back had been in equally terrible katakana. Their friendship had just seemed to fall into place at that point. They had gone from letters sent by teachers, to letters sent by family, to emails and phone calls. Over time, she had taught him Japanese, and he had taught her English.

Despite their long friendship, he still didn't quite know what to expect from this break up. Usagi was a sweet girl, slightly naive, and kind of a flake. She also loved with her whole heart. He still wasn't entirely clear on the details of how she and Mamoru had gotten together, even with years of detail on every other aspect of their relationship to call upon. It had been her first real experience with love, he knew, and the first one always hurt the worst.

"Y-yeah... I'm. I'm okay..." Usagi's voice was still saturated with heartbreak. Tyson just wanted to wrap her up in a hug and let her cry her heart out again. That wasn't how their relationship worked, however. The distance between them was comfortable, a result of years spent living an ocean a part. Phone calls and letters had been their only contact for so long that even lending a shoulder to cry on felt awkward and stilted.

So instead he had commandeered an out of the way washroom so that Usagi could put herself back together; get rid of tear tracks, redo her make up, comb her hair... that sort of thing. The only problem was that they'd taken over the washroom twenty minutes earlier, and the water had long since stopped running. Whatever she was doing in there, it was taking a hell of a long time.

"You're going to have to come out of their sometime, Miss Rabbit."

The nickname was old and familiar, and in deference to her desire to 'not be Usagi anymore' he hadn't called her by anything else since. On the long list of things he wasn't sure of was whether or not that was the best of ideas he'd had, but it had at least garnered a smile out of her. It had been small, true, but it was a smile nonetheless.

"I know." the words were said petulantly, but the sound of the door opening stopped the comment that was on the tip of his tongue. Or maybe it hadn't been the door opening so much as it had been the sight he'd been greeted with when he turned to look.

She had cut her hair off. Oh, not all of it, but with the length of her hair it was rather impressive. The edges were cut ragged and rough, the uneven strands crimping and curling in ways that their previous weight had stopped. Taken out of her perpetual pigtails the hair now only barely brushed her shoulders. If that hadn't been enough of a shock, the hair around her face had been colored with red sharpie marker.

The ink had stained her cheeks and her fingers, despite obvious attempts to wash it off, and she still held the marker in one clenched and trembling fist. The most important detail of the image she presented, however, was the hesitant and hopeful smile.

"I think I should go red."

Brady couldn't help but smile back and laugh with relief.


	3. TEAMMATES

**Paved With Good Intentions  
><strong>_TEAMMATES  
><em>The Itch

* * *

><p>The worst part about moving to a new country in order to be with your lover is leaving your life and friends behind. It only gets worse when you find all your hopes and dreams shattered in the wake of infidelity, before you even manage to get yourself settled in. The loneliness is almost too much for her; she only knows two people on campus as anything more than acquaintances. One of them is, of course, the cheating ex, while the other is a man with his own classes and life to live.<p>

She's been at the center of a gaggle of girls for so long that she's all but forgotten how to be on her own. She's forgotten how to make friends that haven't come as part of the "Serenity package", and even how to separate herself from a woman who has been dead for thousands of years. It seems impossible to move past this.

Although she knows that she could easily call home and talk to her friends, she finds herself unwilling to do so. She hasn't managed to find a job yet, not that she's looking all that hard, and long distance calls are just so expensive. She can't afford it, and calling on her communicator just to sob seems like a waste of resources.

She knows that she can always count on Brady. She's been spending as much time as she can with him, but he's in pre-med and she's busy with politics. Their schedules don't exactly line up with each other, and she finds herself spending a lot of time on her own.

"Join a club or a sport or find a hobby or _something!_" is Brady's suggestion when she brings it up. And after she finishes yelling at her for using her communicator for non-senshi business, Rei fully agrees with him. She needs something to be focused on, something to get her mind off of the fact that the only reason she strived so hard to get into Stanford is the man who broke her heart.

So she starts to read the notices that are taped to bulletin boards, light poles, and on the university website. She pokes her head in on a few meetings here and there, but she just can't seem to find anything that sparks her interest. There is no one and nothing that can pull her out of her broken heart and ease her loneliness.

She's almost ready to give up entirely, to pack her belongings and head home because she just can't do this anymore, when she gets the flyer for tryouts. Some enterprising soul had stuffed one under the door of every room on her floor; she takes it as a sign. Some small part of her, a wisp of the girl she'd been once upon a time, jumps excitedly at the opportunity. She doesn't let herself dwell on anything else right up until tryouts.

It turns out that a half decade of running about on rooftops and saving the world has given her a touch of gracefulness. Growing into her full height and settling into her limbs seem to have finally rid her of the clumsiness that has plagued her for so long. It helps that the acrobatics that she learned by necessity seem to translate into gymnastics routines pretty well, too.

Before she really realizes what's going on, Usagi is at practices and meets. Her smile is steadily growing wider and brighter with every day, and she's putting that terrible first day behind her. Her newfound teammates may not have been the Senshi that she has relied on for so long, but they are quickly finding their way into her heart right beside them.

She is a social girl, and always has been. She _needs_ to be surrounded by people, and they need to be happy for her to be happy and bright. The girls she meets through cheerleading, through this new adventure she's found herself in, they give her that. In turn, she gives back everything she can, throwing herself into the team and letting them take the weight off her back.

The girls might not understand to the full extent just what left Usagi's heart so bruised, but they understand break ups. It's a team effort to distract her, to put her back together after the devastation left in Mamoru's wake. To see her smile and laugh and get her life back.

Usagi always had faired better in a team than on her own.

* * *

><p>...huh. apparently I hadn't uploaded this one here. I say as I post things randomly to livejournal...<p>

There'll be a couple more after this, since I'm trying to get AO3 and FFN caught up with where I've got the timeline on tumblr (and now LJ)


	4. WEEKS

**Paved With Good Intentions**  
><em>WEEKS<br>_The Itch

* * *

><p>She's camped out at a table in the Mark Square Cafeteria, and he is a Med Student.<p>

While she may have been knowingly tempting fate, it still comes as a shock when Mamoru sits down across from her. It's been five weeks (3 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes, but she's not counting) since the last time she saw the love of her life, and Usagi isn't entirely certain of what she is supposed to say or do. Her notes and textbooks are spread out all over her table, but the twisting in her stomach makes it impossible to concentrate on them.

"Usako..."

The best she can do is refuse to lift her head and acknowledge him. Instead, she chooses to let her hair fall into her face to hide her eyes. She's had it in pigtails for so long that she had almost forgotten that she could even do that, and while it may be silly, having that thin barrier between them does a great deal for settling her nerves. She takes a deep breath... and then another... and then she does her best to focus on her schoolwork.

Usagi has never been the most dedicated of students, but if it helps her to ignore Mamoru, then she is damn well going to give it a shot!

"Usako, look at me." That voice... it almost makes her look up. Aside from Brady and a handful of calls home she hasn't heard anyone speak in Japanese for a month and a half. It's just another painful reminder that she came to this country for this man, and now it's all in pieces. She has to bite her lip not to give in and _look_ at him.

It doesn't help. Mamoru leans across the table to cup her chin and gently tilt her face upwards. Her heart gives a painful lurch at her first true glimpse of him in months. He is such a beautiful man, and she has loved him for so very long; but he has hurt her deeply too many times and she doesn't think that she could handle breaking again because of him.

His eyes though... those beautiful eyes that she has spent hours staring into are filled with pain and bewilderment, and she can't handle _that_ either. The honest confusion on his face as he searches hers for answers that her silence doesn't provide makes the knot in her stomach tighten. His hand slips from her face after a long moment, though his fingers tangle in her hair.

He can see a pink tinge to the strands around her face, and for the first time ever he can actually see the dark roots of her hair. There is a moment of guilt as he realizes that he has never actually questioned her hair color. It seems foolish now, but he had always just assumed that it was some sort of magical hold over from Serenity, and before they had discovered their history together he hadn't known her well enough to care.

There is a note in his voice that almost shatters her heart all over again to hear when he finally breaks the tense silence that has fallen between them. "Usako... why didn't you tell me?"

The question shouldn't baffle her the way it does, but she can't help it. "Tell you what?"

"About this! About you being _here!_" He gestures widely: to their surroundings, to the cafeteria, to Stanford and Palo Alto and California and the States in general she thinks. "You've obviously been here since the start of the semester. Why are you avoiding me?"

The laughter that bursts out at that is just a shade off of hysterical and entirely bitter. "Really? _Really? _Mamoch... Mamoru, I _did_ go to see you."

There's a sharp stab of pain in his heart, ragged and painful with the use of his full name. He has been 'Mamochan' for so long that hearing her use his proper name just feels _wrong_. It feels like something between them has cracked and broken; feels as though he needs to fix everything now before it breaks any further. The problem is that he doesn't know what's been broken, and all he can do is stare at her.

Usagi lets the highlighter she's holding fall to the table and the clatter it makes sounds so terribly loud. After what feels like an eternity she breaks his gaze and lets out a shuddering breath.

"I went to see you," she repeats, her voice soft and ragged and just so _broken_ that his heart aches in sympathy. God knows just how much he loves this woman, and seeing her in this much pain only inspires it in himself. That is it _he_ who apparently caused this agony, this worry that has caused her to stew in her doubts instead of coming to see him only causes more.

The girl that he had left in Tokyo would have been up in his face. She would have been wailing and begging like a child, trying to fix them. The woman that sits in front of him now looks just as wreaked as that girl would be, but she isn't advertising it. There is no great temper tantrums and sobs, nothing that outwardly shows her heart break. Nothing but her wide blue eyes.

She's grown up somewhere along the way; she's had five weeks to work through this agony and yet he's only known that she was even in California for one.

"You were _busy_," and the words are bitten out, all sharp and harsh and in _English_ and it makes Mamoru start. Intellectually, he knows that she had to know English in order to come to Stanford, but it's just another unexpected change between the girl that he loved and this woman that he doesn't know. "with your _'lab partner'_."

It doesn't take anything more for Mamoru to know exactly what she is talking about. It's hard not to when the memory is all but seared into his brain. Mamoru has always subscribed to the idea that it wasn't cheating if it was just flirting and fantasies. Especially if the girls had the Serenity-look to them: long blond hair, wide blue eyes, athletic build and beautiful silhouette. It just meant that he missed Usagi, that was all. But Michelle... Michelle didn't fit into the blond and blue eyed mold.

Physically, she was a lot closer to Ami in appearance, and he had fallen into the trap of treating her like one of the girls because of it. They had always ignored any harmless flirting, knowing just how serious about Usagi he actually was. They knew how much he loved his Princess, and they never thought of his flirting as an invitation.

Michelle's kiss had been hot and heavy and needy, and it had stunned him immobile for several minutes. Eventually he had managed to pull his brain together enough to push her off, but apparently the damage had already been done.

Mamoru leans forwards, clasping her hands between his and continuing the conversation in their birth language. He had to make sure that she understood. "Usako... _she_ kissed _me_. It was... a misunderstanding on her part."

And for a glorious moment, her eyes sparkle with light and love and hope. For just a moment... and then the sadness slips back into them, and she withdraws her hands from his with a heavy sigh. "Oh Mamoru..." and there is that pain again, that wrongness. "Mamoru... I love you. I love you more than anything else _ever_, but..."

"But?"

"These last few weeks... They've been hard, Mamoru. Really hard."

"There's no reason for it to stay that way," he finds himself saying, and isn't that a flip? It's always been her chasing after him, and now that she's taking a step back, he finds himself missing it. He doesn't want to let her go; she's tangled herself too deeply into his heart.

She smiles so sadly at him, and there is a strange look in her eyes. "They may have been hard, but Mamoru! Oh Mamoru, this is the first time in _years_ that I haven't defined myself by what she was! I'm not Serenity. I'm not Moon. I'm finally finding out just who _I _am."

Mamoru closes his eyes. He understands the desire to know one's self all too well, and he can't begrudge her for it. Not when he still so clearly recalls the rage and agony of not understanding himself and who he was when they first met. It takes everything in him to put any sort of emotional distance between them, to understand that while she helped him find himself, she needs time by herself to do the same. It's harder than when he had lied to her when Chibi-Usa had first come to them.

"I'll wait," he promises after a moment that seems like forever, and gets up from the table. "As long as I have to. I love you, Usako."

He can hear the sobs start as he walks away, and all he wants to do is to run back to her and fold her in his arms. He wants to brush away all the pain and agony and tears.

But he doesn't. She has had five weeks to start to learn herself. A few more won't hurt. She needs to learn that her tears won't get her everything.

He knows he's lying to himself.


	5. FOOD

**Paved With Good Intentions**  
><em>FOOD<br>_The Itch

* * *

><p>"I'll let you have one or the other, but you can't have both." Brady's voice is teasing as he sets the pair of paper plates on the table between them with a flourish. Usagi's head is still down, but there's a faint trembling to her shoulders that he assumes is laughter as she leans forwards to claim the strawberry shortcake. His answering grin is appreciative and amused as he starts in on the piece of blueberry pie that he'd grabbed for himself. This was the way it always went, of course. Brady would bring a slice of cake and whatever dessert had caught his fancy that day, and Usagi would always pick the cake. Her sweet tooth was delightfully predictable that way.<p>

He's taken a full three bites of his pie before he realizes that she isn't even pretending to eat her cake. "Rabbit?"

She's still got her head down, her hair falling in such a way to hide her face as she curls up around her plate. Her fingers flex randomly on the fork, like she's not sure what it is that she wants to do with it. When she finally looks up at him, her eyes are puffy and her face is splotchy and red with tears. For a moment Brady's brain short circuits and all he wants is for one of her cheerleader friends to show up and deal with this instead of him.

But no, that would be far too much to ask for and he's all by himself in trying to navigate his friend's volatile emotions and pull all her pieces back together. "What happened?"

"Mamoru..." is all that she manages to get out before she starts sniffling again, and she presses her finger tips into the corners of her eyes like that will stop the tears from falling.

Brady's jaw tenses and his expression darkens into a scowl. "What did he do _now_?"

Usagi shakes her head, looking back down at her hands, and twists her fork almost to the verge of breaking. "He didn't do anything, Tyson."

"So this is... what, because he walked past you or something?" Just because Brady has known the girl for more than a decade doesn't mean that he understands the strange paths her mind takes. He doubts that he ever will.

"No... no. We just... talked."

"About what?" he really wants to add 'how he's a cheating scumbag?' to the end of that, but he has long since learned that holding his tongue when it came to Mamoru Chiba tended to result in far fewer tears and sniffling noses.

Of course, now would be the time that Usagi picks of telepathy, as she answers with: "He didn't cheat on me."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Brady drops his fork onto his pie and makes a T for 'timeout!' with his hands. "You _saw_ him macking on another chick."

"It was a misunderstanding," she sniffles, and he really wants to ask how having his tongue in another girl's mouth could possibly be a _misunderstanding_, but she's continuing before he can be indignant on her behalf. "She kissed him just that once. I... I didn't stay long enough to see him push her away."

Mamoru may not have actually said that he'd done that, but she still believes wholeheartedly in him and their love. Brady, on the other hand, isn't quite so convinced. If the expression on his face is anything to go by, he is the exact opposite of convinced. "Please tell me that you didn't take him back."

"No." At this, Brady feels a definite spark of relief. "He's hurt me too much this time for me to just brush it all under the rug, Tyson."

Brady frowns, but once again bites his tongue. There's an old argument to be had here, but it's one that they had in their mid-teens, and there isn't really a reason to bring it all up again now that it seems like she's actually going to follow his advice. Five years may have been a long time to wait, but he figures that it's better late than never.

"So you've gone an officially dumped him?"

"It's more..." she pauses for a long moment, expression twisting before she slips into Japanese. She's still far better at articulating herself in her native tongue than in English. "We're... on pause, I guess? I need to find myself before we get back together."

"How long will that take?" his response is in English. He's perfectly capable of responding in Japanese, he just doesn't want to. The way that he see it, Japanese is Usagi's language, and she's been pretty adamant for the last few weeks that she doesn't want to be Usagi anymore.

"I don't know..." she bites her lip and looks down at her lap. "Tyson, what if he finds someone else?"

"What if you do?"

"What?"

Brady leans across the table. "Now I'm not saying that you go out and find yourself a new boyfriend. What I'm saying is that if you find yourself falling in love while you're finding yourself don't cling to Mamoru's memory, okay?"

"But..."

"Look at it this way, Rabbit: nothing is set in stone, least of all who you're allowed to date."

A strange look crosses her face then, a twisted sort of realization that is followed by pained determination. Brady smiles as she switches her grip on her fork and digs into the cake. He watches her take a couple of bites before he goes to pick up his fork and sees his watch.

"Aw crap. I'm going to be late. You alright here by yourself? I can skip if-"

"I'll be fine, go to class. I just need to... to think, okay?"

"If you're sure..."

"I am."

He searches her face for a any lingering doubts, but all he finds is a sad little smile. It doesn't reassure him all that much, but despite what he said he can't really skip this class. He hefts his bag back onto his shoulder and turns to leave.

"Tyson?"

"Yeah, Rabbit?"

"Can I have the rest of your pie?"


End file.
